Meta sues FTC, hoping to block ban on monetizing kids’ Facebook data

vowseh@lemmy.eco.br to Technology@lemmy.world – 377 points –
Meta sues FTC, hoping to block ban on monetizing kids’ Facebook data
arstechnica.com
25

So they're not even arguing that they're selling children's data. They're arguing against the block on such sales. Rotten to the core

Unfortunately, the United Corporations of America loves milking kids for money because they hope and bank on kids annoying the shit out of their parents to spend money on whatever is being marketed towards them

It’s why toys and sugary cereals run alongside cartoons. We should just ban advertising toward children.

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Seriously, I'd rather just ban overt advertisement. Labels on buildings and stylings? Sure, what ever, peacock your actual location all you want. Have tons of info and material available for people? Definitely. Have catalogs for people to look through where you layout your stuff and make it look nice? Sure. Search engines? Duh. But straight up ads? Nah. Such a waste of time. Let peoples' interest drive the views again.

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The most basic argument for ads that I've heard is that they can inform consumers of options they would not otherwise be aware of. Not unreasonable, competition can only exist if people are aware that alternatives exist.

But that's not how ads are used or the psychology and research put behind them. And the modern incarnation of capitalism as infintiely growing profits above literally all else puts too much skin in the game for companies to make "purely informative" ads. Ugh. Fuck ads.

Not to defend Meta, but monetizing doesn't imply selling. Factories monetize their equipment, for example, but they don't sell it if they want to stay in business.

My guy, what do you think an ad network uses people's data for? This is not even a hypothetical situation. They will absolutely sell anything they can to some dogshit corporation, for targeted adverts

Targeting ads. Not selling the data you use to target ads, because that would be fucking stupid.

Sure but they are still maintaining data and selling access to it insights from it or ads targeted based on it to third parties.

It's being used to target content to minors for the purpose of selling directly to them, influencing their choices without any kind of real oversight.

Even if the data isn't sold directly it's still not okay.

Sure. I'm just taking issue with the ridiculously common claim that advertising companies sell your data. It's false and doesn't even make sense.

It also matters because I'd much rather a few big companies have my data than a bunch of Russian and Chinese data brokers. Even if you think they're no worse individually, there are a lot more of them.

7 more...

We care so much about your children!

*Profits by monetizing children data, even though people under 13 aren't allowed on their platform by their own terms of service.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Meta sued the Federal Trade Commission yesterday in a lawsuit that challenges the FTC's authority to impose new privacy obligations on the social media firm.

The FTC proposed changes to the 2020 privacy order that would, among other things, prohibit Facebook from monetizing data it collects from users under 18.

Meta argues that in the FTC's administrative proceedings, "the Commission has a dual role as prosecutor and judge in violation of the Due Process Clause."

Meta says it should have a right to a trial by jury and that "Congress unconstitutionally has delegated to the FTC the power to assign disputes to administrative adjudication rather than litigating them before an Article III court."

"It speaks volumes that Meta would rather launch a frivolous lawsuit against the agency tasked by Congress with protecting American consumers, especially our children, than do the serious work needed to reform their platforms."

"Meta's baseless lawsuit is a weak attempt to avoid accountability for its repeated failures to protect kids' privacy online," Markey said.


The original article contains 396 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

You can tell how much money they make off of children, because it must surely be a lot for Facebook to blatantly admit to their misdeeds just to openly fight it like this.

As I stated in a previous comment on some other bullshit Meta did. Think about this any time Zuckerberg tries to launder his image in the Lex Fridman podcast.

95% of parents would have never figured by themselves how wrong this is. Still they will never understand why I don't see any good on bringing a new child to this rotten world.

This really feels like they are throwing a bunch of nonsense against the wall and hoping that something sticks. I suspect that they won't prevail, however, even with this SCOTUS.

ETA: after thinking about it a bit more, they might be trying to copy the lawsuit against the SEC that SCOTUS is hearing now, hoping that they also receive a get out of jail free card.